Add Material icons to all pages, rewrite examples page as step-by-step guide
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docs/examples.md
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docs/examples.md
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# REAL EXAMPLE
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# :material-script-text: An example of a proper succession plan with Bitcoin
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!!! danger "Draft — needs review before publishing"
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This page has not been checked against the plugin's actual behaviour. It
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was written from the manual's own descriptions elsewhere, which may not
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be complete or precise enough on their own — treat every claim below,
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especially about costs and timing, as unverified until confirmed with
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the developers or by testing directly. Do not treat it as authoritative
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yet.
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A concrete, start-to-finish walkthrough of how someone actually sets up a Bitcoin
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inheritance with BAL — and keeps it current for years without spending anything.
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Real-world scenarios, to make the mechanics concrete.
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## Step by step
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## Inheritance across three continents, renewed for years at no cost
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<div class="steps" markdown>
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**The setup.** Four heirs, living in three different countries. A delivery time of **5 years**, and several Will-Executors selected from the [WeList](will-executors/welist.md) for redundancy.
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<div class="step" markdown>
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**:material-shield-check: Start from Electrum.** You use [Electrum](https://electrum.org),
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a state-of-the-art Bitcoin wallet with one of the longest security track records in the
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ecosystem. BAL builds on it rather than reinventing the wallet.
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</div>
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**Cost at setup: zero.** Both fees — the miner fee and the Will-Executor fee — are only paid **once**, at the moment a Will-Executor actually broadcasts the inheritance. Setting up the will, signing it, and sending it to several servers costs nothing beyond the wallet's own normal use.
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<div class="step" markdown>
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**:material-usb-flash-drive: Add a hardware wallet (optional).** If you want, pair Electrum
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with a hardware device to raise the security of your keys even further. BAL works the same
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either way — Electrum still does all the signing.
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</div>
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**Staying current costs nothing, as long as you don't push the date later.** Ordinary use of the wallet — receiving funds, spending some, adding or editing an heir — makes the plugin rebuild the will automatically. Because this **anticipates** the delivery date by one day and redistributes it to the same Will-Executors, it is a free operation: no on-chain fee, no signature beyond the one Electrum already asks for. See [Postponing vs anticipating](user-guide/updating.md#postponing-vs-anticipating).
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<div class="step" markdown>
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**:material-account-heart: You have funds to protect.** You hold bitcoin in Electrum that,
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in case of an accident, death, or a lost seed, should reach your children — or simply a
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backup wallet of your own.
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</div>
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!!! warning "One thing this does *not* do for free"
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Bringing forward the inheritance simply brings the date forward by one day and resends it to the Will-Executors, at no cost.
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If, on the other hand, you wish to maintain a fixed time horizon — "always 5 years from today", as explained in the [Delivery time](user-guide/delivery-time.md) section — in this case the date is postponed each time it is updated.
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This involves postponing the date further into the future, which requires a full on-chain transaction to first invalidate the previously distributed will. This incurs a mining fee on the Bitcoin blockchain.
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<div class="step" markdown>
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**:material-puzzle: Install the BAL plugin.** Add Bitcoin After Life to Electrum. See
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[Installation](getting-started/installation.md).
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</div>
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**What this looks like over time:**
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<div class="step" markdown>
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**:material-auto-fix: Set up the inheritance with the guided wizard.** BAL walks you through
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the whole thing step by step — see [Create your first will](getting-started/quick-start.md).
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</div>
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- **Year 0.** The will is created: 5 years out, 4 heirs, several Will-Executors. Cost: 0.
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- **Year 1–2.** The wallet is used normally — a few incoming and outgoing transactions. Each one triggers a free refresh. The delivery date itself hasn't moved, so the horizon has quietly shrunk to 3–4 years. Cost: 0.
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- **Year 3.** Time to push the horizon back out to 5 years. This is a postponement: one small on-chain transaction to invalidate the old will before signing the new one. Cost: one miner fee, paid by the wallet owner.
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- **Onward.** Repeat every 2–3 years — see [How often to renew](user-guide/updating.md#how-often-to-renew). Each cycle also picks up newer Will-Executors that joined the network since the last renewal.
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<div class="step" markdown>
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**:material-account-group: Add your heirs and their shares.** Enter how many heirs receive
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the funds and the share for each. *To avoid future disputes, equal shares for everyone are
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usually the wisest choice.*
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</div>
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The heirs are not involved in any way throughout this entire process. They simply need to keep their receiving wallet safe, or the sheets on which the seed is written (Bitcoin private keys, 12 or 24 words), which we will have taken care to give them if they do not already have a Bitcoin wallet or are not old enough to manage one.
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They do not need to know the date of the will, nor do they need to take any action: the entire mechanism operates invisibly until the day it is needed.
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Furthermore, they do not know how much in Bitcoin funds awaits them, unless we choose to tell them.
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<div class="step" markdown>
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**:material-calendar-clock: Choose the delivery date.** For example 5 or 10 years from now.
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</div>
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<div class="step" markdown>
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**:material-file-sign: The plugin builds the post-dated transaction.** It includes the fee
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for the miners and for the Will-Executors — the servers that hold the will until the chosen
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date and, on that day, broadcast it to the Bitcoin nodes that will accept the transaction.
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!!! success "Setting up and updating a will costs nothing"
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You pay no fee to create or update an inheritance. The fees exist only in the transaction
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itself and are paid **only if and when** the inheritance is actually executed.
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</div>
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<div class="step" markdown>
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**:material-refresh: Renew it once a year or two.** Mark it in your calendar. When you renew
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— adding an heir, changing shares — the plugin rewrites the inheritance transaction and
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re-sends it to the Will-Executors **dated one day earlier**, so you avoid an on-chain
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transaction and any mining fee. Renewing regularly brings two real advantages:
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- **More redundancy** — each renewal can pick up additional Will-Executors that will hold
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your will until the delivery date.
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- **Future-proofing** — a fresh time-locked transaction can incorporate future Bitcoin
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protocol upgrades, such as quantum-resistant security, as they arrive.
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</div>
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</div>
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## Using your wallet normally
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Setting up an inheritance does not freeze your wallet — you keep using Electrum as usual.
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If you **receive** or **spend** funds after the will is set up, the next time you close
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Electrum the BAL plugin checks your balance (by inspecting your UTXOs) and warns you if the
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inheritance needs updating.
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Here too the plugin **anticipates the date by one day**. So a will set to execute on
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**30 July 2031** is reissued for **29 July 2031** — with no need to write anything on-chain
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and no miner fee. This works because an *earlier* time-locked transaction automatically
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invalidates the later one it replaces.
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!!! info "Why anticipating is free, and postponing is not"
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Moving the date **earlier** (anticipating) is free, because the new transaction simply
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supersedes the old one. Moving the date **later** (postponing) is the one case that needs
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a real on-chain transaction, and therefore a small miner fee. For the full mechanics see
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[Keeping the will up to date](user-guide/updating.md#postponing-vs-anticipating).
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---
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